Yes! thou hast many a lone, majestic scene,

Shrined in primæval woods, were despot ne'er hath been.

There, by some lake, whose blue expansive breast
Bright from afar, an inland ocean, gleams,
Girt with vast solitudes, profusely drest

In tints like those that float o'er poet's dreams;
Or where some flood from pine-clad mountain pours
Its might of waters, glittering in their foam,
Midst the rich verdure of its wooded shores,
The exiled Greek hath fix'd his sylvan home:
So deeply lone, that round the wild retreat
Scarce have the paths been trod by Indian huntsman's feet.

The forests are around him in their pride,
The green savannas, and the mighty waves;
And isles of flowers, bright-floating o'er the tide,
That images the fairy worlds it laves,
And stillness, and luxuriance-o'er his head
The ancient cedars wave their peopled bowers,
On high the palms their graceful foliage spread,
Cinctured with roses the magnolia towers,

And from those green arcades a thousand tones Wake with each breeze, whose voice through Nature's temple

moans.

And there, no traces, left by brighter days,

For glory lost may wake a sigh of grief,

Some grassy mound perchance may meet his gaze,
The lone memorial of an Indian chief.

There man not yet hath marked the boundless plain
With marble records of his fame and power;
The forest is his everlasting fane,

The palm his monument, the rock his tower.
Th' eternal torrent, and the giant tree,

Remind him but that they, like him, are wildly free.

But doth the exile's heart serenely there

In sunshine dwell?-Ah! when was exile blest?
When did bright scenes, clear heavens, or summer-air,
Chase from his soul the fever of unrest?

-There is a heart-sick weariness of mood,
That like slow poison wastes the vital glow,
And shrines itself in mental solitude,
An uncomplaining and a nameless woe,
That coldly smiles midst pleasure's brightest ray,
As the chill glacier's peak reflects the flush of day.

Such grief is theirs, who, fixed on foreign shore,
Sigh for the spirit of their native gales,
As pines the seaman, midst the ocean's roar,
For the green earth, with all its woods and vales,
Thus feels thy child, whose memory dwells with thee,
Loved Greece! all sunk and blighted as thou art :

Though thought and step in western wilds be free, Yet thine are still the day-dreams of his heart; The deserts spread between, the billows foam, Thou, distant and in chains, art yet his spirit's home.' pp. 6-10. In the following passage, the transition from the degraded and degrading empire of the Turkish sovereigns of Greece, to the romantic era of the Caliphate, is very happily introduced. After comparing the column of the mosque rising amid the landscape a landmark of slavery,' to the dark upas tree, the poet exclaims:

Far other influence pour'd the Crescent's light,
O'er conquer'd realms, in ages past away;
Full and alone it beam'd, intensely bright,
While distant climes in midnight darkness lay.
Then rose th' Alhambra, with its founts and shades,
Fair marble halls, alcoves, and orange bowers:
Its sculptured lions, richly wrought arcades,
Aerial pillars, and enchanted towers;
Light, splendid, wild, as some Arabian tale
Would picture fairy domes, that fleet before the gale.

Then foster'd genius lent each Caliph's throne
Lustre barbaric pomp could ne'er attain;
And stars unnumber'd o'er the orient shone,
Bright as that Pleïad, sphered in Mecca's fane.
From Bagdat's palaces the choral strains
Rose and re-echoed to the desert's bound,
And Science, wooed on Egypt's burning plains,
Rear'd her majestic head with glory crown'd;
And the wild Muses breathed romantic lore,
From Syria's palmy groves to Andalusia's shore.

"Those years have past in radiance-they have past,
As sinks the day-star in the tropic main;
His parting beams no soft reflection cast,

They burn-are quench'd-and deepest shadows reign.
And Fame and Science have not left a trace,

In the vast regions of the Moslem's power,-
Regions, to intellect a desert space,
A wild without a fountain or a flower,

Where towers oppression midst the deepening glooms, As dark and lone ascends the cypress midst the tombs.

Where now thy shrines, Eleusis! where thy fane,
Of fearful visions, mysteries wild and high?
The pomp of rites, the sacrificial train,
The long procession's awful pageantry?
Quench'd is the torch of Ceres-all around
Decay hath spread the stillness of her reign,
There never more shall choral hymns resound,
O'er the hush'd earth and solitary main;
Whose wave from Salamis deserted flows,
To bathe a silent shore of desolate repose.

And oh! ye secret and terrific powers,
Dark oracles! in depth of groves that dwelt,
How are they sunk, the altars of your bowers,
Where superstition trembled as she knelt !
Ye, the unknown, the viewless ones! that made
The elements your voice, the wind and wave;
Spirits! whose influence darken'd many a shade,
Mysterious visitants of fount and cave!

How long your power the awe-struck nations sway'd,
How long carth dreamt of you, and shudderingly obey'd!

And say, what marvel, in those early days,
While yet the light of heaven-born truth was not;
If man around him cast a fearful gaze,
Peopling with shadowy powers each dell and grot?
Awful is nature in her savage forms,
Her solemn voice commanding in its might,
And mystery then was in the rush of storms,
The gloom of woods, the majesty of night;
And mortals heard fate's language in the blast,
And rear'd your forest-shrines, ye phantoms of the past!

Thebes, Corinth, Argos !-ye, renown'd of old,
Where are your chiefs of high romantic name?
How soon the tale of ages may be told!
A page, a verse, records the fall of fame,
The work of centuries-we gaze on you,
Oh cities! once the glorious and the free,
The lofty tales that charm'd our youth renew,
And wondering ask, if these their scenes could be?
Search for the classic fane, the regal tomb,

And find the mosque alone-a record of their doom!'

Some of the most spirited stanzas in the poem are those which contain the apostrophe to Athens. The Elgin marbles, which ! are described with not less correctness and skill than enthusiasm, naturally lead the poet to advert to the influence which the study of these works is adapted to have upon our own artists, and he calls upon England, in conclusion, to be what Athens e'er has been.'..

"

Art. XII. The Arctic Expeditions. A Poem. By Miss Porden. 8vo. pp. 30. 1818.

WE should have noticed this poem before. Perused immediately after the very able and delightful article' in the Quarterly Review, which to a subject half-science, half speculation, succeeded in communicating the illusive interest of romance and the reality of history, it would have accorded well with the reader's feelings. But now, alas! the Expeditions have returned, and the day-dream is ended! Lost Greenland is

VOL. X. N. S.

3 C

not found, and Baffin's Bay may still be written Bay by our geographers. What is worse, the predictions of the Quarterly Reviewers have failed to do credit to their weather-wisdom: instead of the chill and wintry season with which they threatened ns, we have had a summer of more than ordinary fertility and pleasantness. Our corn-fields, our orchards, and our hopgrounds have teemed with wealth and luxury; but as to our vines, which, we were told, are, some of these days, to flourish again as they did in the time of our ancestors, the emigrant icebergs have not travelled southward far enough, or the polar barrier has not been sufficiently broken up, to admit of our having that gratification as yet. Devon and Hereford are again flowing with cider, Scotland may boast of her John Barleycorn, and the honest Cambrian may rejoice over his Cwrw; but we citizens must still be content, as heretofore, to be indebted for our port and our raisins to the Dons, and to make up the deficiency of better articles, with currant juice and malt wine. The hope of once more realizing the descriptions of spring given by our elder poets, is now again indefinitely deferred, and those who wish to descant on the vernal beauties of the Queen of the Seasons, must, as we apprehend they did, catch the echo of Greek or Roman strains, and clothe with the charms of Arcadian or Sicilian skies, the cold and capricious clime of a higher latitude.

We regret, we say, that we have deferred our notice of Miss Porden's version of the pleasant soothsayings of the Secretary to the Admiralty, till they have lost much of their effect, or rather, till they have acquired the power of exciting a different effect from what they were intended to produce. This is not the fault of the poetess, who has managed her subject secundum artem, and discovers no small skill in versification. Her production may still claim to rank with any of the prize-poems that either Oxford or Cambridge are accustomed to furnish; and if she might without fear enter the lists in competing for the laurel wreath, the Notes to the present poem, not less than those appended to her former production, discover an ambition of scientific attainments. We think that the lectures at the Royal Institution, to which Miss Porden refers, are proved by the present instance, to be of no small service to the Public.

Without further preface, we shall proceed to lay before our readers a specimen of the poem itself, as the best method now left us, of apologizing for our unfortunate dilatoriness. Adopting the chimerical expectation of discovering the lost colony on the eastern coast of Greenland, the Author exclaims:

The barrier bursts-and Britain, first of all
Wherever perils threat, or duties call,
Sends forth her heroes.-What shall be their joy,
When first that long lost country dims the sky;
What their's the melancholy task to trace
The last sad relics of a perish'd race;

Or should they live to bless the niggard spot,
Pour on their ears a language half forgot;
Teach them again to till the barren sod,
And praise once more a long neglected God;
Again their light canoes shall sail, again
Shall milder Summers rear their golden grain :
Nay, long by frosts opprest, our happier elime
Again shall hail returning Summer's prime ;
Its ruddy grapes shall lavish Autumn bring,
And all Sicilia's sweets adorn the Spring."

Then occur two unfortunate lines, which must be omitted in the next edition.

No day-dreams these of Bard's fantastic brain,
This summer's lapse shall realize the strain.'

6

The succeeding lines display talents of no contemptible order. We do not recommend the fair Authoress to resume' this theme, but we pledge ourselves to do her justice, in the event of her venturing upon one of a safer kind, and more permanent in